As many predicted, Blake Lively covers the September issue of Vogue. What no one could have predicted was a cover and editorial shot by director Baz Luhrmann, with an editorial theme of Hitchcockian glamour and intrigue – it mostly (but not exclusively) seems to be based on Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. All this editorial does is remind me of two things simultaneously: Blake is a terrible actress AND she cannot do high-end editorials whatsoever. I’m sure those things are connected, but I’ve always noted that Blake’s look, energy and personal aesthetic simply doesn’t translate to artsy editorials or high-end ad campaigns. She’s pretty, of course. But she’s always going to have a downmarket look – Target, not Saks. Yes, I fully admit: I am a hater. Anyway, you can read Blake’s Vogue interview here. Some highlights:
She loves Baz Luhrmann but she’s so shy: “I just love Baz so much. Because he celebrates love. Nobody does love like that…. I’m a very shy person, so I don’t like doing photo shoots, really. Because when I’m acting, I’m playing a character. And I don’t…I don’t feel super comfortable in front of a camera. It’s part of why I don’t want to be in magazines. I know it’s not something I’m supposed to say—I mean, this is I think the first cover I’ve done in four years. Because I just… I’m just too shy.”
Focus on her family: “My life has become more intimate,” she explains, meaning she has been focused on her young children in recent years, and taking fewer movie roles. “But when they said Baz will do it, I thought, Okay, I’ve always wanted to work with Baz. Even if it’s just a week doing a photo shoot for Vogue, that’s still working with him. Seeing through his lens and how he tells stories. Gracing these pages is not my gift to the world. I understand I’m lucky to do it.”
Her theories of baking: “I’d so much rather buy a box of Betty Crocker vanilla cake mix, because they’ve already done the chemistry of it, the science, and then now I get to make it taste delicious. Now I get to add my bourbon or my elderflower liqueur…”
Her mother told her “You can’t mess it up” about raising children: “And I could very much mess it up! My instinct is I really want to do the work and prepare and be ready before I even take the first step in trying. And she’s somebody who’s just like, Go go! Learn as you go!”
She knows how lucky she is: “I was thinking about what you said before, about luck. Wouldn’t it be terrible if I didn’t realize how lucky I am?”
The one thing I will say in Blake’s defense is that it’s very true that her life is more “intimate” now and she really has taken several big steps back from even a part-time career as an actress. That’s true, and it’s true that she hasn’t done a big fashion shoot like this in years. But Blake declaring that she’s shy? Please. No. What’s next, she’ll claim to be an introvert? She’s just following a trend. Anyway, this Vogue piece was sort of hilariously bad, or maybe Blake is just an exceptionally bland interview subject. The bulk of it was quotes from other people swearing that she’s a movie star (where is the evidence of that???) and descriptions of the jewelry she wore during the interview. I think the guy who wrote it was a magpie.
Cover & Instagram courtesy of Vogue.